Asus outs new Chromebooks armed with big touchpads, Bay Trail CPUs

Update 5/9/14 1:15 pm ET: Asus got back to us about pricing for the C200 and C300. Both Chromebooks will cost $249.99.

The Chromebook field is certainly getting crowded fast. Just the other day, Lenovo launched their first consumer laptops running Google’s cloud-based OS. Asus is also joining the Chromebook party with two new Google-centric laptops of their own.

­The 11.6-inch C200 (pictured above) and the 13.3-inch C300 will both be powered by Intel’s Bay Trail (Celeron N2830) processor and feature 1,366×768-resolution displays. The C200 is said to have a glossy display, while the C300’s screen should be matte. Both Chromebooks will sport 2GB of RAM along with 16GB solid state storage, though Google supplements the latter with 100GB of free Google Drive storage for two years.

Both will have one USB 3.0 port, and one slower 2.0 port as well. Asus says that both Chromebooks should get “up to 10 hours” of battery life, which means you probably won’t have to carry your charger with you everywhere you go.

The standout feature here seems to be larger touchpads. There’s no word on their exact sizes, but Asus says that both models will have multi-finger touchpads that are comparable to what you’ll typically find on 14-inch notebooks. Both will also come with 802.11ac wireless, Bluetooth 4.0 support, as well as SD card readers. An HDMI-out will be present too, which will allow you to connect the C200 and C300 to second screens.

The C200 weighs in at 2.5 pounds, while the larger C300 tips the scales at 3.1 pounds. Though precise release dates are unavailable, both the Asus C200 and C300 Chromebooks should be available by the end of June.

Asus says that they’ll start at $249.99, but we have to assume that this price tag only applies to the C200. We reached out to Asus for confirmation, and we’ll update this story if we get any new information on that front.